8.6 /10 1 Votes
4.3/5 Barnes & Noble Language English Pages 804 pp Originally published May 1991 Genre War novel OCLC 22308235 | 4.4/5 Goodreads Country United States Publication date May 1991 ISBN 978-0151836000 Publisher Harcourt Followed by Memoir From Antproof Case | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (hardback & paperback) Similar Works by Mark Helprin, World War I books, Fiction books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mark helprin a soldier of the great war part 1
A Soldier of the Great War is a novel by American writer Mark Helprin. It was published in May 1991 by Harcourt.
Contents
Donald moffat reads a soldier of the great war by mark helprin at chartwell booksellers 5 29 91
Overview
The book focuses on an aged World War I veteran who recounts his life and adventures while traveling with a young man he meets after the two of them are thrown off a bus, the former leaving after the latter is refused entry, as the older man marches toward a visit with his granddaughter, neither knowing the outcome of their journey.
As a young man, Alessandro Giuliani foresees Italy's entry into the Great War and joins the navy rather than waiting to be drafted into the more dangerous infantry. This reasoned and logical course of action has no place in a world gone mad, and Alessandro's life, loves, friendships and fortunes all take bizarre and often tragic turns. Still, Alessandro is able to find beauty not so much because he is a professor of aesthetics (though he is) but because he is profoundly spiritual. As he nears the end of his life story, Alessandro tells his young companion, "And yet if you asked me what [the truth] was, I can't tell you. I can tell you only that it overwhelmed me, that all the hard and wonderful things of the world are nothing more than a frame for a spirit, like fire and light, that is the endless roiling of love and grace. I can tell you only that beauty cannot be expressed or explained in a theory or an idea, that it moves by its own law, that it is God's way of comforting His broken children."